Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting Dec. 10

(11/29/2017)

Linda Hesch and Judy Kampa invite parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and family to The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting, being held at Sullivan’s in Trempealeau on Sunday, December 10, with a social hour starting at 5 p.m. Dinner with salad bar begins at 6 p.m. The lighting of candles for children will start at 7 p.m. with a Celebration of Life Program. Please bring a picture of your child/children with information about them. Be sure to bring a candle to light in memory of your child. If you wish to join in celebration of your children’s lives, please contact Linda at 608-248-3149 or Judy at 608-863-2482 by December 4.

The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting, which unites family and friends around the globe in lighting candles for one hour to honor the memories of the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and grandchildren who left too soon, is scheduled to be held on Sunday, December 10, 2017, at 7 p.m. As candles are lit at 7 p.m. local time, hundreds of thousands of people commemorate and honor the memory of all children gone too soon.

Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the 19th annual Worldwide Candle Lighting, a gift to the bereavement community from The Compassionate Friends, creates a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone. Started in the United States in 1997 as a small internet observance, the event has since swelled in numbers as word has spread throughout the world of the remembrance. Hundreds of formal candle lighting events are held and thousands of informal candle lightings are conducted in homes as families gather in quiet remembrance of children who have died, but will never be forgotten. The Compassionate Friends and allied organizations are joined by local bereavement groups, churches, funeral homes, hospitals, hospices, children’s gardens, schools, cemeteries, and community centers. Services have ranged in size from just a few people to nearly a thousand. Starting in New Zealand, candles are lit at 7 p.m. local time. As candles burn down in one time zone, they are lit in the next, creating a virtual 24-hour wave of light as the observance continues around the world.